O’Reilly’s ‘Investigation’ Into NYC Homeless Is A Disgraceful Hit Job On The Poor And Mayor de Blasio

The O’Reilly Factor’s Jesse Watters aired an “investigation” into homeless people in New York City’s Penn Station. It was so biased and unprofessional that those high school students who tore up Watters’ report on Vermont would have had a field day eviscerating the journalistic “ethics” in this one.

You knew what kind of “investigation” was coming when, during O’Reilly’s introduction, a photo of de Blasio was displayed above the text, “HARMING NEW YORK?”

The pretext was New York City’s efforts to rein in some police abuses - and O'Reilly's blatant effort to suggest that's making law-abiding (white) citizens unsafe. “Recent study found that 85% of New York City police now fear being proactive on the job and that manifests itself in a variety of ways,” O’Reilly claimed.

“Enter the busiest train depot in the country, Penn Station. In the past year, it has really gone downhill,” O’Reilly continued.

There were no experts interviewed, no police officers, no city officials, no Penn Station managers. Watters didn’t even cite any statistics or studies. Instead, he relied on a series of selectively edited, “man on the street” type interviews.

For example, Watters asked a Caucasian woman, “Does it affect you psychologically when you see homeless people in and out of this area?” An African American homeless person just happened to be in the background of the shot.

A Caucasian man told Watters, “I see the upswing. I see a lot more people basically living here. …In the stairwells, in the back areas.”

A young African American girl told Watters, “It’s kinda heartbreaking to see other people who don’t have houses. They don’t have money to buy food and it’s a possibility they could die from that.” Later, the same girl admitted the homeless scare her “because you never know what they could do.”

Watters told us that it’s forbidden in Penn Station to sleep on the floor or panhandle. But Watters couldn't be bothered to ask anyone in a position of authority why the rule seems to be disobeyed.

Instead, Watters asked a Hispanic man, “Technically, you are not allowed to loiter and panhandle. Are they enforcing that?”

The man responded, “I don’t think so. I really don’t see them moving them anywhere. You just saw a cop walk by and they didn’t talk to him. They don’t talk to any of those guys.”

And guess who just happened to be in the shot? A seemingly drunk African American man seen previously.

Showing 8 reactions

Ellen, I don’t think you paid attention to my main point. Provide a singular link from any major News station commenting on misrepresentation of the homeless situation in New York City? Harsh language is needed when people are as despicably bad at their job, you have to seriously be a terribly lazy and inefficient fool to reverse trends set by Giuliani & Bloomberg.

Claiming something like TYT really comes down to subjectivity (normally because of ideology). There’s no point in watching TYT comment because it will only frustrate me, causing me to “deconstruct” their video with a comment. They don’t have entertainment value in a satirical fashion, which is what Fox News is great at (Jesse Watters, Greg Gutfeld, Red Eye and all the comedians). Fox News claiming to be unbias isn’t too much of a joke compared to CNN and MSNBC , their thing is to let the hosts have their own uncensored views the only problem is almost all of their hosts are conservative. Fox News will take on any liberal voice which wishes to come on, but no liberal voices go (outside of comedians) because they know they don’t have an audience.

Saying I’m not a deep thinker isn’t a great defence of Bill de Blasio as mayor. Why did people joke about Bloomberg and his beverage laws (which never went through), yet under de Blasio “Manspreading” has become illegal on the subways. The filthy racist Giuliani cleared the subways of Graffiti, Saint de Blasio is ensuring they don’t have ball room.

Don’t be so easily offended, being an adult includes conversations with people you don’t agree with. Things might become uncomfortable, but don’t take things personally.

Aaron, I think you are either a troll or else you are not paying attention to what I said. My point was that lots of media outlets have commented on this terrible segment and I provided proof.

Also, I don’t need your lectures about what news sources to pay attention to. It’s Fox News that claims to be unbiased. TYT and Democracy Now do not. And, by the way, The Young Turks put together an excellent deconstruction of this segment. I’ll bet you didn’t even watch that discussion before calling me the fool.

And while I can respect someone not approving of Mayor de Blasio, calling him a “one term retard” is not at all the sign of a deep thinker.

Ellen, please don’t make a fool out of yourself by providing a link to The Young Turks. They’re one of the most bias sources of information, they’re worse than Fox News and are on the level of DemocracyNow and RT.
Bill O’Reilly just had a controversy and wasn’t treated lightly by the media, if he was doing a “hit job” here then it’d be all over CNN, MSNBC, and let’s not forget those liberal satirical shows which broadcast out of New York City which are featured on Comedy Central.
Do agree with people because of their ideological background, Bill de Blasio is a one term retard who ruined the progress which resulted in the safest big city in America. Look at Baltimore, who do they try to blame regarding mayoral duty? Martin O’Malley, the dude who lowered the crime rates and successfully went on to become governor. Look at the people who followed him, what were their political ideals?

Those “white men” were Caucasian Business Owners. You’d think if the “investigation” was truly that fraudulent, there would be more articles than this and one on Salon (they’re not obviously bias, note that is a sarcastic remark). I don’t think the report was about the number of homeless rising, but more the policing of loitering has become extremely lax making Penn station a haven for the homeless when they should be in shelters (as noted by one of those white men, the city has a budget of $78 billion).